Advanced Designs Corporation, B-275928; B-275928.2; B-

Advanced Designs Corporation, B-275928; B-275928.2; B- BNUMBER: B-275928; B-275928.2; B-275928.3 DATE: April 21, 1997 TITLE: Advanced Designs Corporation, B-275928; B-275928.2; B- 275928.3, April 21, 1997 ********************************************************************** DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release. Matter of:Advanced Designs Corporation File: B-275928; B-275928.2; B-275928.3 Date:April 21, 1997 Kevin C. Golden, Esq., Bayh & Connaughton, for the protester. Ronald S. Perlman, Esq., Porter, Wright, Morris & Arthur, for Enterprise Electronics Corporation, an intervenor. Robert Peterson, Esq., Department of the Navy, for the agency. Jacqueline Maeder, Esq., and Paul Lieberman, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Agency properly rejected protester's proposal where the proposal was not submitted in the format called for by the solicitation, failed to satisfy material technical solicitation requirements, and did not provide an unequivocal offer to perform at a firm, fixed price as required by the solicitation. 2. Protester whose proposal was properly rejected as technically unacceptable is not an interested party to challenge acceptability of awardee's proposal where there was another proposal besides the awardee's which was also determined to be eligible for award. DECISION Advanced Designs Corporation protests the rejection of its offer and the award of a contract to Enterprise Electronics Corporation (EEC) under request for proposals (RFP) No. N65236-96-R-0015, issued by the Department of the Navy for a supplemental weather radar (SWR) system in both fixed-site and transportable configurations. Advanced Designs contends that the Navy failed to properly evaluate its proposal. The protester also alleges that EEC's proposal failed to satisfy the requirements of the solicitation and that the agency improperly held discussions with EEC. We deny the protest. The RFP, issued on June 26, 1996, solicited offers for a firm, fixed-price contract for a base year (lot I) and four 1-year options (lots II through IX) to produce, install and provide support for an SWR system, including fixed-site Doppler weather radar systems and transportable Doppler weather radar systems. Each lot included contract line items and, in some instances, subline items for which the offeror was required to provide a unit price and an extended price. Offerors were required to submit proposals organized in three separate volumes, including a business and price volume, an "other factors" technical volume, and a volume containing the "Level of Confidence Assessment Rating " (LOCAR), concerning the offeror's qualifications and experience. The RFP, at paragraph L-630, "Instructions for Submitting Proposals," provided that: "[t]he contractor shall submit a single proposal which shall include an offer for a single radar system configuration for the [f]ixed-[s]ite application and a single radar system configuration for the [t]ransportable application. Separate [p]roposals may be submitted for additional [f]ixed-[s]ite/[t]ransportable radar configuration [offers.]" Section M of the RFP stated that technical proposals would be evaluated as "outstanding," "very good," "acceptable" or "not acceptable" on six evaluation listed factors. Each factor listed 1 to 4 subfactors. Section M required that proposals be submitted in the form prescribed by the solicitation. The solicitation provided that award would be made to the responsible offeror whose proposal conforms to the solicitation and represents the best overall expected value to the government, based on the technical evaluation, the LOCAR ratings and price. The RFP stated that in making the best value determination, the agency was more concerned with obtaining superior technical features than with making an award at the lowest overall cost and that the agency may elect to pay a price premium to select a technically superior offeror. The RFP also stated that the contract would be awarded on the basis of initial proposals, without discussions (although it reserved the agency's right to conduct discussions if necessary). Three offerors, including Advanced Designs, EEC and [deleted], submitted proposals by the August 9 closing date. A seven-person technical evaluation board (TEB) evaluated and scored the technical proposals. Each TEB member individually scored the proposals and these scores were reported to a contract award review panel (CARP), which reviewed the proposals and the scoring and had access to pricing information.